Would you recommend the product? No |
Price you paid?: Not Indicated
| Rating: 0

Pros:

Cons:

Insufficient meat content, low quality grains, sugar

The information available about this food is limited to the ingredient list. This is a lesser amount of information typically available, and the review should be understood to have been conducted on this limited basis.

The first ingredient in the food is Maize (corn). Maize is a difficult to digest grain, of limited value and that is commonly associated with food allergy problems. Maize is also the third ingredient, and is likely to make up the majority of the food. Even if this had been a higher quality grain, we would still note that grains are not a natural foodstuff for canines and that dog food products should be based on meat rather than on grains. Further grains in the food are rice and oatmeal, which are decent quality, but this is an extremely grain heavy product that might be better suited to a non-carnivorous species.

The main meat product in the food, second on the ingredient list, is poultry meal. This is a low quality ingredient that cannot be identified by source or species and may vary. Unidentifiable ingredients are invariably of low cost and quality. There is a further meat meal ingredient 5th on the ingredient list, but this is too far down to make a substantial contribution to the overall meat content of the food. We note this is a fish meal ingredient, but find no sign on the manufacturer website of a guarantee that they use only ethoxyquin-free protein ingredients in the food (ethoxyquin is a chemical preservative, commonly added to fish destined for meal, and that is banned or heavily regulated in human food production due to the belief that it is carcinogenic). Lamb meal is a good quality ingredient, but 9th on the ingredient list and making up only 4% of the product, it is too little too late to make a significant difference to the meat content or quality of the food.

‘Greaves’ is defined by UK animal byproducts regulations 2003 as the protein-containing residue of rendering, after partial separation of fat and water. In other words, low quality byproducts. Poultry fat is a further low quality ingredient rarely found in anything but very low quality foods. Poultry fat is an ingredient of unidentified origin for which it is impossible to determine source or quality. Unidentified ingredients are usually very low quality. AAFCO define this as obtained from the tissues of poultry in the commercial processes of rendering or extracting. It consists predominantly of glyceride esters of fatty acids and contains no additions of free fatty acids. If an antioxidant is used, the common name or names must be indicated, followed by the words "used as a preservative".

Molasses is a source of sugar that is completely uneccessary in dog food, and sourced from sugar beets which are an ingredient commonly linked with food allergies, and which we prefer not to see in any form in dog food products. Apple pomace is filler. We would prefer to see the use of whole eggs rather than egg product in this food. No information is given about the preservatives used in this product, which may include chemicals such as ethoxyquin, BHA or BHT, all of which are allowed in dog food but are banned or heavily regulated in human food due to the belief that they are carcinogenic.

Overall, this product uses primarily low quality ingredients, including several of unidentifiable origin. It is primarily comprised of low quality grain with little meat content for the canine.